UNDL Suriname hosts UN human rights outreach

9 December 2013 - Paramaribo, Suriname. United Nations Depositary Library in partnership with one of the Departments of the Anton De Konm Univeristy, hosted a presentation and interactive session by the UNIC on Human Rights and the United Nations. UNIC spoke about the current situation of human Rights around the world and identified thriee marginalised peoples in the Caribbean Area , Belize, Guyana and Suriname - the disabled, indigenous peoples and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender persons (LGBT). These groups continue to be marginalised by state and cuivil society in all regions; some of the issues that arise are poor or insufficient progress in providing accessibility to state facilities and services for persons with physical and mental disabilities, exclusion of indigenous communities from decision making in so far as it regards self -determination and the equity in land use and resource exploitation and failure to decriminalise consensual same sex activities between adults. In additon to this the UNIC aslo pointed to the expressed concerns of Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on violence, persecution, torture and killing of persons belonging to these marginalised groups.

UNIC also mentioned some of the international mechanisms for accesing funding for the promotion and protection of human rights and coordinates for filing individual complaints, by on behalf of victims.